1.5.8-Pilferingapples
Brick!Club, Les Miserables, 1.5.8, Madame Victurnien Spends Thirty-Five Francs on Morality in Which Madame Victurnien is THE ACTUAL WORST. Seriously, I don’t think we get anyone else this unrelentingly unjustifiably mean- like, cruel, petty, and small-hearted- for the entire rest of the book. Thenardier’s the only other character I can think of who’s as cruel and even HE has a point to the things he does; he harasses people for material gain but doesn’t go out of his way to wreck people for the spite equivalent of Warm Fuzzies. Victurnien spends a decent chunk of money and time to go stare at an abused child just so she can come back and make like even worse for that family, because…Reasons? I realize I should hate this character but mostly I’m just in a loop of DO NOT UNDERSTAND. Of course I do understand the overseer dismissing Fantine. Those awesome rules about morality, whoo! (and good call about her being Not The Best Worker, Kalevala). And I am sure, as other people have pointed out, that Valjean never really thought this side of his rules through— how they might act as a bar to people seeking redemption just as he is. I think what strikes me the most about this chapter is, again, how alone Fantine is. There’s no one to stand up for her in the workplace; Madame Victurnien’s group makes up their judgement on her without a challenge. She’s been in town a year, and doesn’t seem to have a friend willing to loan her so much as bus-fare equivalent. If she does know anyone who’d be willing to help her out, she doesn’t have the confidence to rely on them enough to ask. I’m not blaming Fantine for her isolation; she’s not had the sort of background that encourages A++ social skills. But being alone in the Les Mis ‘verse is bad bad news, a general invitation to doom in the worldly (though never spiritual) sense. There’s nothing unrealistic about that, of course— support networks obviously make life easier even when Social Services Exist. But I think, even more than that, being alone makes Fantine see her fall as her fall only, and that takes away her strength to resist. People tell her ‘go see the mayor’ , and she doesn’t, because she accepts the judgement on her as fair (right now at least). Except it’s not a judgement on her, it’s a judgement on every single woman who might have this one random bit of history in common, or even who might be accused of it. It’s deeply unfair against anyone who’s like Fantine, and we know Fantine is willing to make a stand for the sake of other people; that’s why the next few chapters are going to happen. She might have interceded, and made a noise, on behalf of others like her, and maybe that would have helped her too. But right now she doesn’t think that anyone IS like her; she’s alone, and she’s willing to accept what happens to her alone. I’m not accepting squat though! Expect a whole lot of shouts of NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE over the next few chapter, because NOPE. Commentary Gascon-en-exile Here finally may be said to be the moment of Fantine’s actual fall, a much delayed one as far as women goes. In most cases the Victorian (or quasi-Victorian) fallen woman has a very obvious dramatic moment marking her fall, usually coming when she decides to have extramarital sex. Fantine, though, was in an extramarital relationship from her first appearance, and Cosette’s existence is suddenly thrown upon the reader in the last paragraph of a livre. These are not followed by any characters moralizing upon Fantine’s socially unacceptable behavior, because it’s not until moral judgment passes into the hands of the community that there’s even an acknowledgement that there is perception of a moral dimension to her predicament. This chapter also brings up class dynamics by not bringing it up, simply because the fallen woman - and the community that repudiates her - is like most social archetypes seen as a primarily middle-class phenomenon, appearing alongside depictions of the lower classes as naturalized moral degenerates too ignorant to be aware of concepts like respectability. Well, here are some factory women behaving like the cattiest of Victorian middle class housewives. One of the general observations on the rise of middle-class culture in the 18th-18th centuries is that much of it came out of (sometimes inaccurate) imitation of upper-class behavior. Victurnien, perhaps coupled with the bizarrely romantic Mme. Thénardier, represents that process traveling down the social ladder even further. I know there’s something also to be said regarding Victurnien’s late husband, but it’s such a complicated intersection of revolution (which we all know Hugo loves) and organized religion (which we know he’s willing to critique when necessary). Religious vows are quite a different matter, though, as making a vow is a serious act of personal faith, and I’m not sure Hugo is telling us that M. Victurnien’s breaking his vow of chastity in the process of becoming a revolutionary is something to be admired about it, or something to be admired in his widow that she would have consented to marry an ex-monk. I’m reminded of Martin Luther, a former monk who married a former nun, but he was acting consciously against the Church and (probably unintentionally) setting a precedent for clerical marriage being the norm in Protestantism, but Hugo makes sure to tell us that “''à la restauration, elle s’était faite bigote, et si énergiquement que les prêtres lui avaient pardonné son moine''" ("After the Restoration, she became bigoted, and was so energetic that the priests forgave her her monk"). She’s still Catholic, and in order to remain so in the eyes of her local clergy she had to make up for her act through extreme - and extremely self-righteous - behavior. I think as far as Hugo is concerned everyone involved in the Victurniens’ marriage and its aftermath is in the wrong, really. Kalevala-sage This post is late for Reasons I may or may not later blog about at length and under cuts; the only important thing to know is that Pilfering is a saint. And also that even in my despair I will facetiously reference Anna Karenina; I’m fairly proud of that. Anyway, I had forgotten the entire you-spurned-the-horny-foreman subplot wasn’t part of the brick—unfortunate, since he was by far my favourite pre-1832 part of the film. I haven’t yet had the chance to read others’ 1.5.8s, so excuse any reiterations, but I’m inclined for once to just nod my assent to Victurnien’s awfulness. As if it weren’t horrid enough for the entire dead monk thing to reek of fetishism, the fact that it’s mentioned soon enough after Madame is called a “gardienne et portière de la vertu de tout le monde” that a snobbish aftertaste still lingers does make one wonder if her choice in husband was to emphasize her delicate moral palate. Which, apart from being Catholically un-kosher, is disgustingly selfish—she’s augmenting her purity at the expense of his. Also, unnoteworthy as it is, the comparison of Mme Victurnien to a “gorgone” still got a cheap laugh from me—it’s the gaze of a gorgon, after all, that petrifies, and the eyes of a gossip that condemn the furtive. In the arena of social commentary, though, Hugo seems for once to have reined in his rambles, offering a thankfully brief critique of the bourgeois predilection to gossip. Nevertheless, this brevity is hilarious (perhaps for its unwontedness): said critique concludes with a mere “''Chose triste''.” ”How sad.” Two-word sentences. By Hugo. Unheard of. Pilferingapples (reply to Kalevala-sage) Skirting the idea that conversation with a friend is somehow a saintly act (or aksdjlfghk as I believe the technical response should be): The quotes here make me wish I was reading this in French, because that’s some lovely language, and there’s no gorgonicity happening in the FMA. Alas! Madame Victurnien: Unwanted Private Eye is a great image, but Madame Victurnien: Unwanted GORGON Private Eye is even better!